


After the Darkness Has Gone

by storytellerluna



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellerluna/pseuds/storytellerluna
Summary: An Anakin Skydala Parenting AUAnakin did not turn to the Dark Side. Padme lived through childbirth. The whole universe is changed, and now Anakin and Padme have to raise their twins in a world where the Jedi Council still forbids marriage and family ties.  Interesting hijinx ensue.





	1. Naboo in the Spring

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Anakin stared out across the grassy plains of Naboo.  In his mind, the image of himself running across these plains with Padmé played on a constant loop, and he could even remember exactly what he had said to her then.

_Then they should be made to agree._

_That sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me._

_Well, if it works…_

He hadn’t realized at that point that it was the influence of a Sith Lord making him think like that.  If he had known it was a Sith Lord, he wouldn’t have listened.  That’s what he kept telling himself anyway.

He had, of course, figured out that Palpatine was a Sith Lord eventually.  When Palpatine had told him the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise, Anakin had been intrigued by it, but he had also been troubled.  The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis was a Sith legend after all: even Palpatine had admitted that.  Anakin was walking back to his quarters afterwards, thinking about why Palpatine would tell him this legend, when he saw Obi Wan cross the hall in front of him.  He remembered that Obi Wan did not trust the Chancellor, so he called out to him.  He told Obi Wan what happened, and listened, eager to hear what his mentor would have to say.  Anakin had always trusted Obi Wan’s guidance, after all.

Obi Wan was shocked to hear that Chancellor Palpatine knew a Sith legend, and even more shocked to hear that he’d told it to Anakin.  Both of them had run straight to the Jedi Council chamber to tell whoever they could find as soon as possible.  As it turned out, “whoever they could find” in that moment meant Mace Windu, and Windu was even more shocked and appalled than Obi Wan had been.  He had gathered the entire Jedi Council and confronted Palpatine immediately.  The ensuing battle had gone in the Jedis favor.

After Palpatine had been defeated, Obi Wan had come to find Anakin in the Jedi Council chamber.  They sat and talked, Anakin staring out the window at the tall skyscrapers of Coruscant the entire time.  At the end of their talk, Anakin had apologized to Obi Wan for how he’d been acting.  He wasn’t good at apologies, nor was he used to them, but he blurted it out anyway.  Obi Wan had seemed very pleased to hear it, and said it sounded like Anakin was taking the right steps.

_I’m proud of you, Anakin,_ he had said, sitting there on his own Jedi Council seat.  _You made the right decision today.  Because of you, we apprehended a Sith Lord!  That’s not something everyone can brag about._

Then, the words had made Anakin feel like he should be proud of himself, but he wasn’t.  He was just conflicted, confused about why Palpatine had chosen him, and still torn between his duty to the Jedi Order and his love for Padmé.

He had also apologized to Padmé, of course.  It was right after Obi Wan had left the Council chamber.  Anakin had gone straight to Padmé’s apartment, told her everything, and asked for her forgiveness.  He had been terrified that she wouldn’t want to give it, but she did.  She forgave him for everything, promised him that he couldn’t have known what Palpatine was, and pointed out that the entire Senate had been fooled by Palpatine as well.  She even talked Anakin through the steps he was taking on his new, Palpatine-free path.  And ever since then, she had been with him every step of the way.

He looked out at the grassy plains of Naboo, his wife’s home planet, and he tried to shove all the negative thoughts to the back of his mind.  How had a memory of a romantic afternoon with her turned into a stream of thoughts about the man who had manipulated and tried to corrupt him?  He forced the memories about Palpatine to go away, and in their place, he thought of more memories about Padmé.  He had come here with her more than once, after all.

When she had reached the 9th month of her pregnancy, Anakin had been overcome with anxiety.  He had the nightmare every night.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that the dream was a warning.  Padmé took a leave of absence from the Senate and went back home to give birth on her home planet, and to get treatment from one of Naboo’s excellent hospitals.  Anakin had gone to the Jedi Council, claiming sickness, and asked for a period of leave as well.  Then he had gone to Naboo to be by her side as she gave birth to their twins.

The nurse had said the best words Anakin ever thought he’d hear.

_It’s a boy.  He’s healthy.  It’s a girl.  She’s healthy too.  And Senator Amidala is doing just fine.  She is going to live._

The relief had flooded through Anakin like a river released from a dam, and he honestly couldn’t remember feeling anything better than that in his entire life.  As if that feeling wasn’t enough by itself, the nightmares stopped too.  Now that Padmé had given birth to two beautiful baby children, and had survived the experience, the fear of her dying in childbirth had disappeared completely from Anakin’s mind.  He hadn’t had any more nightmares since then.

Now, he stood on the balcony of Padmé’s summer home on Naboo, and he watched his children playing in the grass.  A smile spread across his face.  His son took a tumble, got back up, and kept playing, and Anakin’s heart swelled with pride.

“Luke looks a lot like you used to,” Padmé’s voice said from behind him.  Anakin turned, and saw her striding across the balcony, graceful as ever, to stand next to him and watch the kids.  She leaned on the railing as she stood there, and suddenly Anakin couldn’t keep his eyes off her.  She looked so radiant, especially when she was watching her children.  Looking at little Luke and Leia always made Padmé’s face light up like a thousand stars.

“You say he looks like me?” Anakin asked.

“You don’t see it?  Look at his sandy blonde hair, his round face.  He’s younger than you were then, but I think he looks a lot like that little boy I watched win a pod race on Tatooine.”

Anakin watched his son for a while.  He supposed he could see what Padmé was getting at, but then again, he didn’t really want to think about his life on Tatooine right now.  Instead, he decided to change the subject.

“Oh yeah?  Well Leia looks a lot like you.”

“You think so?”

“She’s got your hair, your smile, that rebellious glint in your eye…”

The corner of Padmé’s mouth turned up in a sly smile.  “You think I have a rebellious glint?”

“I know you do!”  Anakin grinned at her.  “You get that look in your eye every time you’re about to defend something you believe in.  I’ve seen you looking like that on your way to the Senate chamber.  I’ve seen it when you’re talking to me.”

Padmé let out a small laugh.  “Well, I guess I have a lot of passion for the things I believe in.  Like justice, democracy…”

“You do,” Anakin said.  “It’s a good trait, I think you should keep it.”

This time, Padmé laughed louder.  “Alright, I’ll keep it,” she said.  Then she and Anakin settled back into watching their children play.

After a while, she said “I’ve been thinking of going back to Coruscant.”

Anakin turned to look at her again.  “Are you sure?  Look what you’ve got here!”

“I know, and I love Naboo, but I’ve been away for too long.  I don’t want to just sit around here and wait for something to happen.  Besides,” she said, and when she looked at him, Anakin could see that determined look he’d been talking about earlier.  “There was a holo from Bail Organa earlier this morning.  The Senate seems like it’s finally ready to elect a new chancellor.”

Anakin raised his eyebrows.  “Really?  Who do you think they’re going to pick?”

“Well, we don’t know yet, but I’m hoping it’ll be Bail.  I want to go back so that I can add my voice in support of his bid.”

Anakin looked back at the twins playing in the grass.  He thought about Padmé rushing back to rejoin the Senate, and he thought it was the right thing for her to do.  That’s what she loved about being a Senator, after all: being able to speak up for things she believed would make the galaxy better.  Anakin still didn’t have any faith in the political system, but he knew that she did, and he knew that going back to the Senate would make her very happy.

Before he really knew what he was saying, he had said it.

“You could take Luke and Leia with you.”

“Really?” Padmé asked.  “You think they’re ready for Coruscant?”

Anakin nodded.  “They’re both Force-sensitive.  They could join the Jedi Temple.  Or if they don’t want to be Jedi, they can at least start going to school there.  Make friends their own age.  Learn about the galaxy.”

Padmé thought about it, and after a while, decided it might be for the best.  She would be there to watch over them, after all, and so would Anakin.  The Jedi School had plenty of capable teachers and daycares.  And making friends their own age would only benefit the kids.  She thought about how Anakin still wasn’t allowed to have family ties, so she would have to lie about who the father was, but she felt certain she could do that.

Finally, she made her decision.  The Skywalkers were going to Coruscant.


	2. Not the Jedi Way

Little Luke couldn’t wait to get to Coruscant.  “I want to become a Jedi, just like my daddy!” he shouted, jumping up and down in the cockpit of Padmé’s ship.  When they landed, Padmé had to hold him back and remind him that he couldn’t tell anyone that Anakin was his father.

“There are rules here that we didn’t have on Naboo,” she explained.  Making eye contact with Anakin before they left the ship, she added, “this might be harder than I thought.”

They separated as soon as they were in the doors, and Anakin rushed to the training center to practice sparring with some droids and to keep himself away from the Council chamber.  Padmé, on the other hand, took her children to meet the Jedi Council.

It took some convincing, but the Council agreed to take on Luke as a youngling.  They could sense his excitement and his potential.  They could tell he was a young boy eager to learn how to use the Force for good.  In Leia, on the other hand, they sensed too strong of an attachment to her brother, and a potential for anger.  Yoda worried that if she was trained alongside Luke, her connection to him would only strengthen.  Since Jedi are not supposed to have family ties, this worried Yoda.  He saw her refusing to separate from her twin, and he saw her lashing out when challenged.  On those grounds, he refused to accept Leia in the Jedi Academy.  She was enrolled in a Republic school instead.

 

Several years went by.  Bail Organa was elected Chancellor of the Senate, and under him, the Republic started to undo the damage that was done by Palpatine.  Meanwhile, Luke showed such promise in his training that he began taking advanced lightsaber classes… which were taught by none other than Anakin Skywalker.

Anakin walked down the line of preteen and teenage students, inspecting their stance.  He corrected some, praised others, and made sure everyone understood the purpose behind this exercise.  When he got to Luke, he smiled.

“That’s good,” he muttered to Luke alone.  “You’re coming along well.”  Then, raising his voice so the whole class could hear it, he added, “everyone, look at how Luke is holding his lightsaber.  Look at how he’s standing.  This is what I want your stance to look like.”

The other students began trying to copy Luke’s stance.  Some of them got it, some didn’t.  Luke blushed a little under all the attention, but he quickly got over it and started giving advice to his peers about how to improve their stances.  Anakin beamed.

“Okay, now I want someone to step forward and practice the maneuver we just learned… against me.”

The students were all silent.  None of them moved.

“Aw, come on, you aren’t scared of me, are you?” Anakin asked his class.

“We kind of are a little bit,” a young Twi’lek girl on the end of the row muttered.

Anakin raised an eyebrow.  “Really?  You’re scared of your teacher?”

“We heard about your Clone Wars record,” the girl explained.  “And we heard the other Jedi Masters saying you were one of the best with a lightsaber.  We know that fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and all that, but…” she trailed off.

“But you are intimidated, is that it?” Anakin asked.  The girl just nodded.

“You don’t have to be intimidated by me,” Anakin said.  “I’ll go easy on you.  This is just for you to practice the maneuver.”

The students were still silent and unsure.  Only one of them still held the lightsaber stance they were supposed to have been practicing.  He stopped holding it once he realized all his peers had stopped.

That one was Luke.

Anakin looked his son in the eye.  “Do you want to demonstrate the maneuver?” he asked.

“Are you sure?” Luke asked.

“Yeah, come on over here.  It’s alright.  Like I said, I’ll go easy on you.”

Some of the other students whispered as Luke walked into the middle of the circle that had just been formed.  _He’s going to be Skywalker’s Padawan for sure,_ some of them said.  _It’s obvious he’s the favorite._

Anakin took a dueling stance, and Luke copied him.  Then, in a sudden flurry of motion and plasma, the practice lightsaber battle between father and son began.

 

While Luke was in his advanced lightsaber class, Leia sat in a stuffy classroom, listening to her teacher talk about history.  Some of it was interesting, some of it boring, and some of it actually alarmed her.  At the end of the lecture, she raised her hand to ask a question.

“You said there used to be slavery in the galaxy,” she began.  “But you never mentioned it again apart from that.  So… is there still slavery?  If not, how did it get abolished?  What areas, specifically, were being affected by that?  What are those areas like now?”

“That’s a lot of questions, Miss Leia,” the teacher said.  “Slow down, please.”

Leia frowned.  All of her questions had been relevant, and related to each other.  She didn’t understand why the teacher would not want to answer all of them.

“Is this going to be covered in another lecture?” she asked.

The teacher stood there for a moment, gathering his thoughts.  Then when he finally spoke, it was in a calm, soothing voice that he hoped would calm Leia down a bit.

“Slavery existed outside the boundaries of the Republic,” he explained.  “It was a horrible practice, but I am sure it has ended by now.  Either way, the Republic outlawed the slave trade a long time ago, so we have nothing to be concerned about here.”

Leia’s frown deepened.  “What do you mean you’re sure it’s ended?” she asked.  “You mean you don’t know?”

“Please do not question the answers I give you,” the teacher said.  “That is all for today.  Class dismissed.”

The rest of the class filed out of the room, but Leia was not done.  She couldn’t believe that anyone, much less a history teacher, could brush off such important questions about something as horrible as a galactic slave trade.

“You can’t ask me not to question things,” she told the teacher as he put away his lecture notes.  Her anger was clear in her voice.  “I’m just trying to learn about what happened.  Something that important deserves to be paid attention to.  What if it’s still going on?  Isn’t it the Republic’s duty to protect people?  To uphold freedom and civilization?”

The teacher sighed.  “I can tell you are Senator Amidala’s daughter,” he said.  “I am going to call her here right now, actually.  Your mother and I need to have a talk about your angry outbursts.”

Leia picked up her bag of school supplies and slung it over her shoulder.  “I was going to walk home after this anyway,” she said.  “I’ll tell her about it myself.”

“No, you sit down,” the teacher commanded.  “You’re in detention now, young lady.  I am going to talk to your mother about this.  Hopefully she can talk some sense into you.”

 

After the lightsaber training let out, Anakin walked back home with Luke.  They took smaller, lesser-known, low-traffic passageways to get back to the Skywalker family apartment, which was officially Senator Amidala’s apartment since Anakin couldn’t admit he was married to her.  Taking these passageways allowed them a little bit more privacy.  Still, even in the quiet back alleyways of the Jedi Temple, Luke and Anakin had to dodge awkward questions sometimes.

“I’m just walking him home after training,” Anakin said when they encountered someone in the hall.  “I kept them late today, and he didn’t want to walk home by himself.”

Luke was still a little embarrassed for having been put on the spot in class, but he had also held his own very well in the lightsaber duel, so he was elated too.  He ignored the pointed comments, and instead distracted his father with talk about lightsaber maneuvers and when to use them.

“Master Skywalker, I am curious about a move you used today in the duel,” Luke said as they crossed into a part of the building that the Jedi shared with the Republic school that Leia went to.  “You haven’t taught us that one in class yet, have you?”

“You know, Luke, you could call me Dad when there’s no one around,” Anakin pointed out.

“Not when we’re in public!” Luke whispered.  “What if someone overhears?  Anyway, that move you used…”

They walked out of the small hallway they had been in, and into a larger, well-lit hallway, where they saw Padmé and Leia standing outside a classroom door, talking to Leia’s teacher.  The teacher looked upset.  So did Leia.  Padmé had on a poker face the likes of which she usually reserved for difficult negotiations.

“Leia!” Luke cried, waving to his twin sister excitedly.  Anakin hung back by one of the columns as Luke and Leia ran to hug each other in the middle of the hall.  Padmé glanced at her two children and her secret husband, gave a small smile, then turned back to the teacher.

“I will talk to her about it, you have my assurance,” Padmé promised.  The teacher, mollified for the moment, thanked her and withdrew back inside his classroom.  Padmé nodded toward the safety of the darker hall, and the Skywalker family began to walk home together, keeping a lookout for Jedi Masters as they went.

“So, what was that about?” Anakin asked Padmé as they walked.

“Leia got in trouble for calling out the teacher in class.”

Anakin glanced at his daughter.  “Calling him out?  For what?”

Leia huffed and crossed her arms over her chest.  “He was being ridiculous,” she complained.  “I wanted to know what had happened in the rest of the galaxy after the Republic outlawed the galactic slave trade, and he wouldn’t tell me!  He kept not answering my questions.  And then he told me not to question him anymore.”

Anakin stopped walking.  Luke almost ran into him.  For a moment, he just stood there in the middle of the hallway, and all he could think about was Tatooine.

He looked at Leia.  She was watching him with a half-confused, half-concerned expression.  She hadn’t known what reaction he would have, but she had not expected it to be that.  Then he looked at Padmé, who knew exactly why he had stopped so abruptly.  Her eyes were full of compassion.

“Should I tell her?” he whispered to his wife.

“It’s your story, so it’s your decision,” Padmé replied.  “I haven’t told her.  But you should know, it’s only going to make her angrier.”

“It makes me angry too,” Anakin said.  “It’s a topic that should make everyone angry.”  Even though he had drastically improved his control over his emotions, there were some things that still made him forget all about the Jedi Code.  The galactic slave trade was one of those things.

Leia watched both of her parents, unsure what to think.  Finally, she whispered, “um, tell me what?”

Anakin took a deep breath in, then put a hand on her shoulder.  “When we get home,” he said, “I will tell you about where I came from.”


	3. Amidala's Daughter

Leia sat on the couch in her family’s apartment.  In her hand, she held a holo-disc, and she stared at it with eyes full of emotion.  A hologram of a historian explained how difficult life on the Outer Rim planets was, how they hardly ever got any attention from Republic forces who could have aided them.  It touched Leia’s heart, but it also tugged at her anger even more.  Anakin had told her about how he had grown up a slave on Tatooine, and Padmé had been right: it did make her angrier.  As she watched the holo, tears began to well up in her eyes.  She didn’t know what to do with all of her powerful feelings.  Galactic injustice was still such a new concept to her.

“Okay,” a soft voice said.  “Why don’t we turn that off for now?”

Leia looked up.  Padmé had walked over and was looking at her with sympathetic eyes.  She reached over and turned off the holo-disc, then sat down on the couch next to her daughter.  Leia wiped her eyes dry, then scooted a little closer to her mom.

“Before you say anything,” Padmé started, “I know how you feel.”

Leia blinked.  “You do?”

“Yes.  You feel angry, confused, hurt.  You’re just learning about all these horrible things that happen in our galaxy, and you’re wondering why no one has fixed them yet.  Is that right?”

Leia nodded, and a little bit of relief showed on her face.  The fact that her mother could understand made things so much easier already.

“Do you also feel a need to help out?” Padmé asked.

“Yes!” Leia shouted.  “It’s overwhelming sometimes.  I watch these videos and I want to do something to at least relieve these people’s pain, like at least help them get clean water and food or something.  But at the same time, I know that’s not going to be enough to really make any _lasting_ change.  And anyway, I’m just one person.”

Padmé held up a hand.  “If you are about to ask me _‘how am I supposed to make a difference?’_ then I am going to stop you right there,” she said.  Then she put her hand on Leia’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes for emphasis.  “There is _always_ something you can do.  You’ve already taken the first steps!  You’re educating yourself about what’s going on.  That’s good.  The next step would be to figure out how you feel about it and get involved.”

“I know how I feel about it,” Leia answered.  “I’m angry, like you said.  And I’m sad.”  Then she jumped up and began pacing around the room, yelling.  “But mostly I just want to know how this can be allowed to go on!  I want to look the people who are responsible for it in the eyes and beg them to justify it to me.”

Padmé nodded.  She saw a lot of Anakin in her daughter, but that was to be expected.  She just had to make sure to teach Leia how to control her rage and use it in a productive way.

“That’s normal, too,” she explained, keeping her voice calm the entire time.  “I used to feel the same thing, in fact.  It’s why I went into public service.”

“Really?” Leia asked.  She seemed interested.

“Yes,” Padmé said.  “You know, things weren’t always so peaceful on Naboo.  When I was around your age, there was a siege and a hostile takeover, and the Trade Federation… well, that’s a story for a different time.  But my point is that politics are supposed to help people.  We negotiate.  We argue, yes, but we defend the underdog.  Well, those of us who care about the underdog, anyway.”

“You do good things,” Leia said.  “I’ve heard you practicing some of your speeches for the Senate.  I liked those.”

Padmé smiled then.  Leia’s praise warmed her heart.

“You know,” she said, careful about how she wanted to broach the subject, “your school does have diplomacy clubs for students who want to get involved in politics.  It might be a good way to get your ideas out there and start creating some of that change you want to see.”

Leia thought about it, and after a while she nodded.  “Okay,” she said.  “I think that might be worth a try.”

 

It didn’t go quite as Padmé had expected.  On Leia’s first day in the diplomacy club, Padmé was called to the school because of the “impolite language and aggressive behavior” her daughter was exhibiting.  When she walked into the debate chamber, she found Leia standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at a boy her age who was glaring at her right back.

“Listen, I came here to debate, but apparently you don’t want to be civil!” the boy accused.  “I was just playing Devil’s Advocate is all.  No need to get all emotional about it.”

“Oh yeah, well I think your opinion is idiotic at best and actually harmful at worst,” Leia retorted.  “I want to debate with people who actually understand what is going on, not self-deluded Palpatine fanboys.”

“He would have made the galaxy great again!”

“It’s _already great_ , you stuck-up half-witted nerf herder!” Leia shouted.

“SENATOR AMIDALA!  I’m so glad you’re here!” the teacher cried when he noticed Padmé standing there.  “Control your daughter.  _Please.”_

Padmé walked Leia home and talked her through trying to control her anger in diplomacy club.  “I don’t blame you for reacting the way you did,” she said.  “It still surprises me to find there are still Palpatine supporters in the Senate.  But you have to remember not to resort to throwing insults during debates.”

Leia raised her eyebrows.  “There are still _Palpatine supporters_ in the _Senate?!”_

Padmé sighed.  “Maybe we need to just take a break from politics for now.”

 

The diplomacy club met once a week.  For the whole week, Leia relaxed and tried not to think about things that upset her.  Padmé taught her breathing exercises designed to calm her down, and at the end of the week, Leia went back to the diplomacy club and promised the teacher she wouldn’t throw any more insults at anyone.  She practiced the breathing exercises and tried to keep her temper to a manageable level.  For a few weeks, it worked.

Then one day, Padmé got another message from Leia’s teacher.  “Your daughter started a food fight in the cafeteria.”  Padmé tried to resist the urge to facepalm, and once again walked over to the school to see what was going on.

“I didn’t start it,” Leia explained.  “He mashed his potatoes into my shirt.  I just… reacted.”

“Alright, I understand why you were upset,” Padmé said, sitting down next to Leia on one of the cafeteria seats.  “And he definitely should not have smeared his food on your shirt.  But when you start throwing food all over the cafeteria like this, it makes you look too emotional, and it makes it easier for your opponents to attack you.  Today, he was trying to provoke you into doing something like this, and you gave him fuel for his fire.  There are better ways to express your anger.”

Leia looked at the ground.  “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

“It’s okay,” Padmé promised.  “We’ll work on it.  Now let’s go home and get you cleaned up.”

 

The school took an extended break for the winter holidays, and when classes started up again, everything seemed okay for a little while.  Leia glared at people she didn’t like in the diplomacy club, but she didn’t throw insults at them.  She learned to keep her voice steady and to form arguments the way her mother did in the Senate.  She didn’t start any more fights either, with food or otherwise.  Padmé thought she might finally be growing into her role as a teenage diplomat.  She smiled thinking about how much good Leia could do in the Senate one day.

Then there was another call. 

“Your daughter was caught fighting in the courtyard,” the principal said.  By the time Padmé got there, Leia was sitting in the principal’s office, staring at the wall and fuming.

“Who was she fighting?” Padmé asked.

“Two older boys,” the principal explained.  “They have been sent to the school nurse.”

Padmé glanced at Leia.  She had a little bit of blood on her lip, and a bruise already forming around one of her eyes, but other than that, she looked okay.

“You sent two older boys to the school nurse?” Padmé asked, her voice quiet.  Leia nodded.

“Why?”

“They were ganging up on one of the smaller kids, a first-year Togruta girl, and I stepped in and told them to stop,” Leia explained.  “So then they started ganging up on me, too.  Then one of them pushed me, so I pushed back… I didn’t really think about it.” 

“Is the girl okay?” Padmé asked.

“Oh yeah, she’s fine.”

“This isn’t about that child!” the principal cried.  “This is about Leia making the fight physical and putting two older students into medical care!”

Padmé sighed.  She hated having to deal with men like this.  “Okay,” she said, then turned back to Leia.  “Violence is not the answer, alright?  But that being said, I’m very proud of you for defending that girl, and this whole thing was definitely the bullies’ fault and not yours.  I hope you understand that.”

Leia nodded.

“Let’s go.”

After they left the principal’s office, Padmé whispered, “you have a lot of your father in you.  I didn’t want to say anything before, but it’s definitely there.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Leia asked.

“It… depends,” Padmé said carefully.  “He’s a good man.  But there was a time when he almost let his anger take control of him.  Your anger reminds me of his sometimes.”

Leia was silent for a while, thinking about what to say.  Finally she asked, “what can we do about it?”

“I think you’ll need to ask him about that,” Padmé said.  “And he’s on a mission for the Jedi now, so you’ll have to wait until he gets back.  But in the meantime, I want to ask you something.  Do you feel like the diplomacy club is the right group for you?”

Leia shook her head.  She had felt out of place there since the first day, but she hadn’t wanted to say anything to her mom about it because she could tell how much it meant to Padmé.  But now, she admitted everything.

“A lot of the other students in there are just impossible for me to deal with,” she said, “and I feel like I’m never going to get anything done that way.”

Padmé nodded.  She had suspected as much.  “Well then, you should quit the club if it’s not making you happy,” she said, giving her daughter a kind, supportive look.  “And we should find something else for you to do instead.”


	4. Exploring

Luke was already eating breakfast when Leia woke up the next morning.  She went and sat down next to him, stared into her cup of blue milk, and sighed.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked his twin.  “I heard you kinda took a beating yesterday.”

“Psh, you should see the other guys,” Leia muttered.

Luke laughed.  “Nice going, then.”

Leia took a deep breath and stared into her milk some more.  After a long moment, she figured out what she wanted to say.

“I’m not sure what I want to do with myself,” she admitted.  She waited a moment to see how Luke would react, but he just looked at her, waiting for her to keep talking.  “I’ve just been going to school and dealing with things as they come.  When Mom suggested diplomacy club, I thought that might be a good option.  I could get my voice heard that way, and it would help prepare me for a term or two in the Senate one day.  But it wasn’t right for me.  I quit the club, and I have no idea what to do instead.”

“Well, what kind of thing do you _want_ to do?” Luke asked.

“I don’t know.  I need something to focus on.  If I don’t find a focus soon, I think I might go crazy thinking about all the injustice out there that I could be helping to fix.”

“So you want to do something active,” Luke said.  “Something that helps the galaxy.”  He thought about it for a moment and then mumbled “I’m sure we can think of some examples if we both think about it hard enough.”

“I’m surprised you’re not suggesting Jedi,” Leia said.

Luke’s answer surprised her.

“Well, to be honest, um… I’m not so sure about the Jedi Order.”

Leia stared at him.  Her brother had been excited to become a Jedi ever since he learned what a Jedi was.  What could have brought about this change?  After a moment, she managed to ask “what do you mean?”

“Well, first of all, the Jedi Code forbids emotion.  That’s something that everyone experiences, and not even all of it is bad, but we’re just supposed to ignore all of it?  How?  I sometimes wonder how all the Jedi Masters don’t go crazy from all their repressed emotions.  And second of all, they forbid family ties.  Some of my teachers don’t even like that I still live here with you and Mom.  Well, and Dad unofficially.  Apparently I’m supposed to have ‘let go’ of all of you by now.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know about Dad.”

“And that’s another thing,” Luke exclaimed, slapping his hand on the table as he did.  “They won’t allow Mom and Dad to get married.  We always have to sneak around and hide the fact that we know who our father is.  Why shouldn’t we be proud of it?  He’s a great Jedi.  I want to be able to tell people that my father is a great Jedi.”

Leia didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.  After a while, she muttered, “you can tell me.”

“But you already know,” Luke whined.  “I want to tell other people.  I want to be able to tell the world I want to be a great Jedi, _just like my father!_ But the Jedi Council would punish him if I said that.  Which seems unfair to me.  Which is why I’ve been kind of second-guessing being in the Order.”

Leia nodded.  “You’re right, that is unfair.”  After a moment, she added, “maybe you and I both need to come up with something else to do.”

Luke frowned.  “I still like the Jedi stuff I’ve been learning, I’m just not sure about the _Order,”_ he said.

“It could still be worth it to think of other options,” Leia pointed out.

Luke thought about it, and had to agree.  “Let’s go exploring,” he suggested.  “Maybe we’ll see something that piques our interest.”

Leia smiled.  “Now that sounds like a great plan.  Lead the way.”

 

They wandered around the residential district first, which wasn’t that exciting.  The most interesting part of that was when they ran into another Senator’s kids and played a short game of hide and seek with them.  Luke won, because he used the Force to detect where the other kids were hiding.  As the other kids complained “not fair!” Leia apologized for her brother and they both ran off another way.

They wandered into the Jedi Academy, where Leia thought she could easily get lost among the columns and the shadows in between them.  One of those shadows, it turned out, was being used by Master Yoda as a meditation spot.  The Skywalker twins almost didn’t notice him until they were stumbling over him.  They both apologized profusely, and Yoda replied with a lot of cryptic phrases that they did not understand.  Instead of getting into a battle of wits with him, they made their excuses and walked away.

They ventured outside the Academy building then, and decided to try climbing up the outside of it to sit on the roof.  They both managed to do it by helping each other up, and by using the Force at times.  They sat on the roof and stared out at the vast cityscape that was Coruscant, at its skyscrapers and towers, and its multiple levels of traffic zooming by below.

“Well, what do you think?” Leia asked after a while.

“I don’t know,” Luke admitted.  “This doesn’t really feel like home to me.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Leia sighed.

They stayed on the roof for a little while longer, then Luke suggested they should head back home.  On their way back, they walked by a docking bay where VIPs usually parked their ships, and Luke doubled back to watch what was going on there.  Leia quickly noticed and doubled back after him.

Pilots, mechanics, and droids rushed here and there across the docking bay, hurrying to get the whole area cleared as fast as possible.  Someone shouted for pilots to move all the smaller speeders out of the way.  When Luke glanced at the sky, he could tell why: an enormous ship was lowering itself onto the landing platform nearby.  It was big enough that it was going to take up most of the space in that docking bay all on its own.  Luke couldn’t help but stare.

Next to him, Leia was staring too.  “That’s Chancellor Organa’s ship,” she whispered.  “He must have just gotten back from doing something really important.”  She had met Bail Organa a few times, and he had always been really nice to her.  Plus, she knew he was an important ally of Padmé’s in the Senate.

“Wow, I wonder what kind of stories these pilots could tell,” Luke breathed.  His eyes were big as saucers and full of stars as he watched the pilots hurry back and forth, each to their own mission.

Leia noticed the stars in her brother’s eyes, and nudged him, grinning like she’d just caught him in a crush.  He frowned at her, confused.

“What?” he asked.

“You obviously like watching them,” she pointed out.  “Have you ever considered becoming a pilot?  Have you ever tried to fly?”

“Just for fun,” Luke said.  “Not like they do.”

“Maybe you should try it out,” Leia suggested.  “You might like it.  You might even have a knack for it, who knows?  And it would give you another option outside the Jedi Order if you really want to rebel against that.”

“You and your rebellions!” Luke laughed.  “Always fighting against something.”

“That’s because there’s always something to fight against,” Leia argued.  “But I’m being serious, Luke.  You said you weren’t sure about the Order.”

Luke thought about it.  He tried to picture himself piloting a speeder.  He could see it really easily.  Then he tried to picture himself as a Jedi.  He could see that easily, too.  It only made him more confused about what he was supposed to do.

“Flying does sound really fun,” he admitted.  “But… I like training with Dad.  I’m getting good at using a lightsaber.  And I _do_ want to be a Jedi, I just don’t like some things about the Order.  That’s all.”

“Okay, then let’s go home,” Leia said, and she got up to leave.  “We don’t want to get in Bail Organa’s way, anyway.”

She paused at the entrance to the docking bay and turned around to see if Luke was following her.  He was, but he had stopped to cast one last glance at the pilots before he left.  When he turned back around, Leia caught his eye and gave him a knowing look.  _I saw that longing glance,_ it said.  _You can’t fool me.  I know you can’t wait to get yourself behind the wheel of a speeder._

 _Embrace it,_ she wanted to tell him.  She thought the words at him as hard as she could.  _If you want to fly, fly.  Just do what you think is right._

She glanced back to check on him one more time as they walked.  He was following, but his face was a unreadable stone.  She couldn’t tell if he’d heard her at all.


	5. An Upcoming Mission

Anakin had returned from his Jedi mission a few days ago, and the Council had given him permission to have some time off.  After all, the mission had lasted longer than anticipated, and had involved a little more combat than he’d thought.  The Jedi Council had promised him they would look into it, and told him not to worry.  He knew he was going to worry anyway, but he accepted the time off.  He wanted to spend it with his family… but of course, he couldn’t tell them that.

“You’re so tense,” Padmé said as she massaged his shoulders.  “Was there a lot of fighting?”

“More than I thought there would be,” Anakin admitted.  “But it’s not just that.  I’m also concerned about who was involved.”

Padmé frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“Well, the people who attacked us weren’t wearing any insignia or any kind of uniform, but they fought like a cohesive unit.  Someone is training them.  Someone who doesn’t want to be identified.”

“So these were mercenaries?” Padmé asked.

“That’s my guess,” Anakin said.

“Who do you think could be hiring them?”

“I don’t know.”

They both fell silent for a while as Padmé continued to massage Anakin’s shoulders, trying to get rid of all his built-up tension.

“Tell me something else,” Anakin begged his wife.  “Take my mind off of the mission, please.  What’s been going on here?”

So Padmé told him about Leia in the diplomacy club, and about why Leia had left that club.  She told him about all the calls she had gotten from Leia’s teacher, and mentioned the food fight in the cafeteria.  When she mentioned the fight with the school bullies, Anakin stood up and whirled around to face Padmé.  He stared at her with his jaw hanging open for a moment, then he remembered to close it.

“Hold on, you’re telling me my daughter took on two older boys alone?” he asked.  “And sent them to the school nurse?”

Padmé nodded.

“And she was okay?” Anakin asked.  “She wasn’t hurt?”

“She got a black eye, but it’s alright now.”

Anakin shook his head in disbelief.  “She has no combat training,” he said.  Then a moment later, another thought hit him, and he muttered “they’re going to see her as a target now.”

Padmé was about to ask what he meant, but deep down, she already knew.  Leia was a strong young woman with some frankly radical opinions who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind.  Padmé had told Leia she was like Anakin, but a part of Leia actually reminded Padmé of her younger self.  Padmé thought about all the controversial opinions she herself had expressed, and how many death threats she had gotten.  As Queen of Naboo, she had even employed a decoy just for that reason.  Now, she couldn’t bear thinking of her daughter up against that same amount of pressure.

She made eye contact with Anakin, and she knew he understood.  He had been there for her on several occasions when she’d almost been killed by a political enemy.  He saw the look in her eye and knew exactly what she was thinking of without even having to ask.

“I could train her in basic self-defense,” he whispered.  “On my time off.  Plus, the training might give her something to focus on.”

Padmé nodded and was about to say something else when the doorbell rang.  Confused, she went to answer it, and Obi Wan Kenobi swept into the room.

“Padmé, I’m glad I found you,” Obi Wan said.  “I’ve just met with Chancellor Organa, and he – oh, my apologies.  I didn’t know you were here, Anakin.”  Turning back to Padmé, he asked “is this a bad time?”

Anakin was standing in the middle of the room, staring at Obi Wan.  He had not expected anyone to interrupt him and Padmé, much less his former master.

“Obi Wan, what are you doing here?” he managed to ask.  Then, remembering that he was not officially supposed to live here, he added, “this is a _lady’s private chambers!”_

Obi Wan looked calm and collected as always.  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said to Anakin.  His face did not expose any emotion whatsoever.

Anakin blinked a few times, then suddenly, like a lightsaber turning on in a dark room, the perfect excuse came to him.

“I was just picking up Luke for advanced lightsaber training today.”

Obi Wan raised an eyebrow.  “Really?” he asked.  “How fatherly of you.”

Anakin didn’t know how to respond to that.  Padmé just stood in between him and Obi Wan, giving both of them an exasperated look.  Finally, she turned back to Obi Wan and put on her poker face again.

“What were you about to say about Bail Organa?” she asked.

“He’s just returned from Alderaan, and he says he has an important diplomatic mission for you,” Obi Wan explained.  “He wouldn’t disclose the location, but he can give you the details if you meet with him about it.  He says it is an emergency, one which might possibly concern the future of the Republic.”

Padmé raised her eyebrows.  Something this big, right on the tail of Anakin’s strange story about mercenaries?  She shook her head to clear it of those thoughts.  These things couldn’t possibly be related, could they?  No, this was something else, something Bail Organa was dealing with.  Political matters, not concerning the Jedi.  Wait, then why was Obi Wan involved?

“Whatever it is, I’ll meet with him about it,” she said, pulling a jacket and a pair of shoes out of a hall closet as she spoke.  Muttering under her breath, she added, “and I should probably tell someone to get my ship ready for takeoff as soon as possible.”

Anakin stepped forward then, a look of concern on his face.  “Hold on,” he said.  There was a serious tone to his voice.  “If this mission is really so important, she should have a Jedi escort.  I can go…”

Obi Wan and Padmé both gave Anakin the same look at the same time.  Padmé sighed.

“Anakin, please try not to look so jealous,” she said.  “You just got back from an important mission of your own.  This one is my area of expertise.  Besides, you have things to do here.  The younglings in your advanced lightsaber class are counting on you, for starters.  And I do agree you should start training Leia in self-defense.”

After a while, Anakin finally agreed to stay.  Padmé smiled and gave him a friendly hug, then hurried off to her room to pack a suitcase for her mission.  Anakin was left standing in the living room with Obi Wan.

“So,” Obi Wan said after a short awkward silence.  “You’re training Leia in self-defense, are you?  That’s excellent.  This world is rough sometimes, especially on young ladies…”

“It’s not just that,” Anakin said.  “She’s been having trouble controlling her anger lately.  I thought some light training might give her a healthy way to get those feelings out.”

Obi Wan raised his eyebrows.  “Anger issues?  Oh dear, that does sound familiar.”  He gave another look.  “ _Do_ let me know if you need any help with that.”

Anakin let out a huff and crossed his arms over his chest.  “I won’t need any help training my own… pupil,” he grumbled.  A moment passed, and under his breath, he added “but fine, okay, I’ll let you know.”


	6. The Children of Anakin Skywalker

Anakin reserved a practice room in the Jedi Temple for that night, and he and Leia planned to meet there separately so as not to draw too much attention to themselves in the hallway.  When he arrived, Leia was already there.  She was wearing a pair of light cotton pants and a loose shirt that would allow her to move around easily.  Her hair was in two braids pinned in buns at the side of her head.  It would stay out of her way when she moved.  Anakin smiled, silently proud that his daughter already knew how to dress to practice combat.

They started out with the simple basics: what a good fighting stance looks like, how to dodge attacks and keep yourself upright, and how to repel an enemy while you are unarmed.  The Jedi Academy didn’t start their younglings out with weapons right away, and Anakin thought it wise not to, either.  Besides, he was teaching her self-defense.  She likely wouldn’t have a weapon on her if someone tried to ambush her at a random time.

The first time she practiced the maneuver, Anakin had her walk through it in slow motion by herself.  He stood off to the side and watched her form.  She had it pretty under control, so he asked her to pick up the speed until she could do it at a reasonable pace.  Once she mastered that, he taught her how to defend herself against an enemy who is attacking from behind.  She practiced that one slowly, then at normal speed, then quickly, and got it down pretty fast too, but she didn’t look satisfied.  She just gave a short nod when he congratulated her, then threw herself back into working on it again.

“Okay, stop,” Anakin said after a couple of go-rounds of this.  “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Leia admitted, breaking her stance and turning to look at him.  “I just don’t feel excited by any of these moves.  I’m trying to focus on them, but I keep getting distracted thinking about that Palpatine-loving nerf herder in my class.”

Anakin looked surprised.  “You got these moves down pretty fast though.  You’re telling me you weren’t giving it your all?  You managed to master the basics while distracted?”

Leia shrugged.  “I guess so?”

It was then that Anakin realized just _how much power_ his family had.  It was no accident that Luke was the best student in his advanced lightsaber class, and it wasn’t nepotism either.  Luke had a raw ability that some of the other students lacked, and he was much more in tune with the Force than most of his peers.  Now, watching Leia train, Anakin realized that the same power ran in his daughter’s veins too.  In one terrifying moment, he realized how much potential she had, how far her abilities might improve with his training.  That combined with her impressive dedication to her causes made Anakin realize that he should never _ever_ piss Leia off.

“So, you’re angry at that kid in your class,” he said, directing her attention back to the present.

“Ugh, YES!  He is such a self-absorbed, out of touch, wannabe-Imperial…”

“Okay,” Anakin said, interrupting her rant before it got out of control.  “I’m going to teach you a trick that your mother and Obi Wan both taught me back when I was learning how to handle anger.  Take all that rage that you’re feeling, and direct it toward something else that’s going to be productive.  That way, you let the anger out, but you don’t hurt anybody in the process.  That’s why we’re doing this today.”

Leia nodded.  “Right, because I tried diplomacy club and it didn’t work.”

“Exactly.”

He walked to the middle of the room and demonstrated some offensive stances for her, and showed her how to throw punches meant to attack, not just to defend.

“Padmé’s not going to like that I taught you this,” he muttered.  “But I think it’s going to help you focus.  Imagine that kid you don’t like is standing right here in front of you.  Imagine he’s just insulted you.”

“I can take that,” Leia said.

“Okay, imagine he’s just insulted your mother.”

Leia grimaced.

“Good.  Now throw a punch at him.  Give it all you’ve got.”

Leia threw the punch.  It fell a little short of giving her an adrenaline rush.

“Try again!” Anakin cried. 

Leia threw another punch, with more energy behind it this time.  It was better, but Anakin could tell she had more strength in her than that.

“Again!” he cried.

She threw a third punch, letting out a yell as she let it fly.  This time, Anakin could hear the air moving out of the way of her fist.  She stopped when she hit that imaginary target, and stood there, staring straight ahead and holding her form steady.  A smile slowly crept along Anakin’s face.

“Amazing,” he said.  “Just like that.  Now, uh, don’t actually punch the kid next time you see him, okay?”

Leia let out a breath and relaxed her stance.  “Don’t worry,” she promised.  “I won’t.”

 

At the same time, in another classroom on the other side of the Jedi Temple, Luke sighed and leaned on his hand.  Master Windu was going on and on about Jedi history and why it was important that they fought the Sith.  Luke knew it was important, but he’d heard a version of this lecture a million times before, and this time he kept slipping in and out of consciousness.  He found himself staring at the door and longing for something more exciting.

After a while, he raised his hand, asked to go to the bathroom, then ran out the door without even thinking twice.

He ran through the halls of the Jedi Temple with no direction, just taking random turns as he saw fit, wondering where it would lead him.  The uncertainty was not scary at all: it was an adventure, and he didn’t care where he ended up so long as it was not a boring history lesson.

He slowed to a walk after a while, but he kept going until he found himself in the docking bay: the same one he had stumbled upon with Leia earlier that week.

This time, the docking bay was mostly empty of people.  Bail Organa’s huge ship was moored off to one side, leaving room for other ships to come and go.  There were smaller fighter jets and speeders docked there too, and Luke found himself drawn to these.

He was inspecting one of the speeders a little more closely, when he heard a friendly beeping sound coming from somewhere behind it.  He crept around the speeder, not sure what he was going to find, and saw a blue and white astromech droid – an R2 unit – sitting between the speeder and the wall of the docking bay.  The droid beeped at him again, then sped out of its little corner, past Luke, heading straight for the cockpit of the speeder he’d been looking at.

“Hey, what the–” Luke started, chasing after the droid.  He found it sitting on the floor, facing the speeder, just beeping away.  He felt like it was almost trying to tell him something.

“What do you want?” he asked it.  It turned towards him, beeped again, then turned back towards the speeder.

“Yeah, I was looking at that one,” Luke said.  “It’s not mine, I just wanted to know what it was like…”

The R2 unit gave out an excited beep, then turned on a jet propulsion mechanism and levitated up to the top of the speeder, where the astromech droids would usually go.  It settled in there and beeped happily, while Luke watched from the ground, confused but very interested.  After a few moments, the speeder made a steady whirring noise and came to life, causing Luke’s eyes to almost bulge out of their sockets.

“Whoa, you got it to work?  Thanks, R2!” Luke cried.  He started to run all the way around the speeder, admiring it from all angles, and wondering if it would be okay if he took it for a test run.

He was so wrapped up in his excitement about the speeder that he didn’t notice someone else walk into the docking bay.

“Well, well,” Obi Wan’s voice said from behind him.  “This looks awfully familiar.”

Luke whirled around, startled, and as soon as he saw who it was, his face turned red as a Sith’s lightsaber.  He shuffled his feet as he tried to come up with an explanation.

“Master Kenobi,” he stammered, “um, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to skip class, it’s just that I was really bored, and, uh, Leia and I came over here the other day so I guess I just subconsciously came back, and…”

Obi Wan waved his hand.  “You don’t need to explain things to me,” he said.  “I already understand.”

“I don’t need to explain things to you,” Luke repeated.  “You already understand.  Wait, you do?”

Obi Wan nodded, smiling slightly.  “Yes, young Skywalker.  It might surprise you to know that I am familiar with this particular little astromech droid.  In a time before you were born, little R2 here was a favorite of Anakin Skywalker’s.”

Luke’s eyes widened.  He knew he couldn’t say anything that would give away that Anakin was his father, but he desperately wanted to know more about the connection between the droid and the ship and him.  He thought through different options of what to say in his brain, but none of them sounded covert enough, so he just stood there like an awkward teenager caught in the middle of a lie.

“Walk with me for a moment,” Obi Wan said, gesturing for Luke to follow him out of the docking bay.  Under his breath, he added, “I so desperately want to see Anakin’s reaction to this.”

 

Anakin had moved several security droids into the practice room for Leia to spar against.  He had also begun teaching her more advanced combat skills, since she had handled the basics so well.  Now, he stood off to one side of the room, watching her go off against the security droids and trying to hold in his fatherly pride.  She really was going to go far, he could tell.  Hell, she might even become a general someday.

Leia was taking on two droids at once when Obi Wan and Luke walked in.  She was so wrapped up in the fight that she didn’t notice them there, and Obi Wan and Luke both decided it was best not to interrupt her until she was done with her sparring routine.  They stayed to the edges of the room and watched her instead of saying anything.  While Leia didn’t notice them, however, Anakin did, and he walked over to stand next to them.

“She’s coming along well,” Obi Wan said before Anakin could say anything.

Anakin beamed at the praise.  He was proud of Leia’s progress, and he also felt like he deserved a little bit of the credit, since he had taught her the entire sparring routing that she was demonstrating now.  He muttered a thank you to Obi Wan and continued to watch Leia train.

“So,” Obi Wan said, then paused.  He wasn’t sure how he wanted to bring up what he had seen in the docking bay.  Anakin looked at him and raised one eyebrow, waiting for the rest of the sentence.

“Guess where I found your son,” Obi Wan said.

“Where was he?  Wait, _what are you talking about?!_   I don’t have a— um.”  Anakin cut himself off.  Luke was staring at him.  Anakin turned bright red and mumbled “I can’t do this.  I can’t say that I don’t have a son, not while he’s standing right there.  I’m sorry.”

Obi Wan was facepalming, but Anakin and Luke could both see his shoulders shaking the way they do when someone is in a fit of laughter.  Finally, Obi Wan stood up straight again and belted out his laughter.  It was so distracting that Leia stopped her sparring routine halfway through.  The security droid she had been about to dodge around tripped her, and she fell down before calling for the droid to stop.  The droids withdrew from the practice arena, and Leia stood up and walked over to join everyone else, a very confused look on her sweat-drenched face.

“What’s going on?” she asked.  “Did you watch my sparring?”

“Yes, I watched all of it, you were amazing!” Anakin cried.  “You’ve improved so much just today alone.  We need to keep training together.  I have a lot I can teach you.”

Leia smiled, then glanced at Obi Wan and Luke.  “What’s going on?” she asked again.  “What’s so funny?  And Luke, aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

“What are you, my mom?” Luke retorted.

“Wait, you’re supposed to be in class right now?” Anakin asked, looking back at Luke with astonishment.

“Yeah, but it was boring, so I skipped,” Luke said. 

“I found him in the docking bay,” Obi Wan pointed out.  “Investigating a speeder, which was powered up and ready to fly.”

Leia gave Luke a small smile then.  She remembered their exploratory mission the other day, and how much he had taken a shine to the pilots.

Anakin raised his eyebrows.  “Hold on, you know how to operate a speeder?” he asked.  “Who taught you that?  I didn’t realize the students in your grade were supposed to learn flying yet.”

Luke blushed again.  “The droid actually turned it on, I was just looking at it,” he admitted.

“What droid?” Anakin asked.

“R2D2,” Obi Wan said with a knowing grin.

For a moment, the only thing Anakin could do was stare.  He stared at Luke, then at Obi Wan, then back at Luke.  His mind ran through every memory that he had with R2, trying to do the math about how that particular astromech had wound up with his son.  He figured out that R2 was still flying missions for the Galactic Republic, so it made sense that it might turn up in a docking bay on Coruscant, but still, this seemed like a very strange coincidence.  Finally, he just looked at Luke and asked, “so how is R2 these days?”

“He seems fine,” Luke said, not knowing what to think about any of this. 

“That’s good,” Anakin replied.

Luke shuffled his feet a little, glancing between his father and Obi Wan.  Finally, he had to ask the question that was on his mind.

“So, Master Kenobi, is Master Skywalker – uh, is my dad going to get in trouble for breaking the Jedi Code?”

Leia’s eyes went wide at the mention of “dad.”  She stared at her brother with a warning look that also held a great deal of panic in it.  She opened her mouth and then closed it again, unsure how to tell him the implications of what he’d just said.

“It’s alright, he already knows,” Luke told her, noticing her stare.

“You told him about that?” she demanded.  Then she glanced back and forth between Luke and Anakin.  “Which one of you told him?”

“Neither of them told me, Leia,” Obi Wan assured her.  “I am simply very observant.”

“So, how long have you known?” Anakin asked.

“Good question,” Obi Wan said.  Glancing at the twins, he asked “how old are you two again?”

Anakin sighed in defeat.  “I guess it’s only a matter of time before the Jedi Council finds out, too.”  Silently, he thought through what might happen at that inevitable hearing.

Obi Wan laughed.  “Please.  They know.  They’ve known for years.”

“What?!”

“You do remember that Padmé had to take both Luke and Leia before the Council to see if they could be admitted to the Jedi Academy, don’t you?  The Force runs very strong in your family, Anakin.  We could all tell whose children they were immediately.”

“So… what’s going to happen?” Anakin asked after an awkward pause.

Obi Wan thought about it.  “We don’t really know,” he answered.  “But it probably won’t be too bad.  The Council absolutely adores you two.”  He smiled at Luke and Leia.

Anakin looked genuinely surprised.  So did the twins.  They glanced at each other, unsure, while Anakin just gaped at Obi Wan.

“What, really?” Anakin asked.  “Wait, have you been talking about my kids behind my back?”

“Oh yes,” Obi Wan said with a twinkle in his eye.  “You should join in next time.  I imagine you’ve got plenty of embarrassing childhood stories about them we would love to hear.”

“Oh, great!” Luke groaned.  He shared a glance with Leia, who looked just as annoyed about that as he was.

Anakin, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear.  “Oh, I have _so many stories,”_ he promised.  He had been holding the memories to himself for so long, and the only person he’d been able to talk to about them was Padmé, who already knew them.  Suddenly, now that this door had been opened, Anakin realized he was _yearning_ to talk about his kids with his coworkers.

“Why don’t you come back to our apartment with us?” Anakin asked Obi Wan.  “And I’ll tell you all about them.”

And so, Anakin and Obi Wan, Luke and Leia walked back to the Skywalker apartment together just like the Skywalker family had done so many times before.  Except that this time, they were including Obi Wan as a part of their family, and they didn’t stay hiding in the shadows.  They walked in the middle of the corridor full of sunlight, and smiled at the Jedi Masters they passed.

Mace Windu gave them a surprised look, then asked Anakin if he had an excuse for walking around this part of the Temple with Senator Amidala’s children in tow.

“I am just walking back home with my kids,” Anakin said.

There was a silence which felt like it lasted an eternity, and then Mace Windu nodded once and muttered “well it’s about damn time you admitted that.”  Then he walked away.

Leia looked at Luke, and she didn’t have to say anything out loud, but she knew he understood her look.  _This is the start of a new chapter for us.  Nothing is going to be the same again._


	7. Balance to the Force

Padmé returned within the week, earlier than she had planned on returning.  The negotiations had not gone well.  She yearned to see her family again, since she hated being away from them, but the news she bore was too urgent to wait.  As soon as she disembarked, she marched straight to Bail Organa’s office to tell him all about it.  She was supposed to tell him anyway, it would just have to happen sooner since she had come back early from her trip.

Bail agreed that it couldn’t wait.  Upon hearing Padmé’s story, he declared that it was a matter that concerned both the Republic and the Jedi, and as such, the Jedi Council needed to be informed just as much as the Senate needed to be.  He swept out of the room, gesturing for Padmé to follow him.

When they arrived at the Jedi Council chamber, they found Obi Wan and Anakin already in the middle of making a report.  Anakin glanced up when they walked in, smiled at Padmé, then turned back to the matter at hand.

“As you can see, Masters, Luke’s situation is very different from most of his peers.  The issues he’s facing are not issues faced by any of the other Jedi younglings.  I came to you in the interest of honesty, and in the interest of my son, to see what wisdom you might have.”  He glanced at Obi Wan once he stopped talking, and Obi Wan nodded at him, as if to silently say _you’ve done well, Anakin._

“Sensed much conflict within the boy, I have,” Yoda said.  “Torn, he is, between a sense of duty to the Jedi and a sense of love for his family.  Afraid of dishonoring the Code, he is.”

“But when his father is also one of his teachers within the Jedi Order, shouldn’t he be encouraged to honor that?” Mace Windu asked.  “It’s not dishonoring the Jedi Code to have a strong tie between a Padawan and a Master, after all.”

“An interesting problem, this is,” Yoda muttered.

Anakin cleared his throat.  “Um, Luke mentioned to me that he wants to take some time to explore the galaxy a little, outside the Jedi Order, before he officially becomes a Padawan.  He thinks that it might help him figure some things out.”

“It might help him find some inner peace,” Obi Wan pointed out.

The Jedi Masters discussed it among themselves, and eventually decided to let Luke have some time to find himself.  Meanwhile, Master Plo Koon suggested, the Jedi Order could take some time to figure out where it stood on the matter of Jedi with children.

Then Master Windu invited Anakin and Obi Wan to sit down, and asked Bail Organa and Padmé to come to the middle of the room for their chance to speak.

“Thank you,” Bail Organa said, while Padmé glanced at Anakin with a look that spoke volumes.  “Senator Amidala has just given me a very important report, and I felt she should inform the Council as well.  Padmé,” he gestured to the Jedi Council.  “Tell them what you learned.”

Padmé took a deep breath, and looked several of the Jedi Masters in the eye before speaking.  She wasn’t sure if she should work up to it by explaining the full situation first, or if she should start with the most alarming news.  Finally, she explained that she had been investigating a growing hostile force at the edges of the Republic, trying to negotiate a peace treaty with them, when she had figured it out.

“I think there is a new Sith leader gathering power in the Outer Rim.  Hiring mercenaries, building an army.  Backing the slave trade.”

Several of the Jedi Masters looked shocked.  Some cried out “what?” or “really?” and “are you sure?”  Master Windu just facepalmed and muttered “not again.”  Anakin was staring at her with wide eyes, putting two and two together in his mind.

“How do you know this?” Kit Fisto asked.

“Their movement looks very much like Palpatine’s movement within the Senate did,” Padmé explained.  “We didn’t notice that one early enough, even though it was right under our noses.  Some of his supporters are now funneling money to this new movement.  Since Palpatine turned out to be a Sith, I thought I should let you know.  I’ll also be making a report to the Senate, of course,” she added.

The Jedi Masters buzzed among themselves for a while.  Some of them thought there was not enough evidence to support a Sith presence.  Others thought they shouldn’t take the risk.  Kit Fisto and Mace Windu remembered their fight with Palpatine and insisted that they should take any rumors of Sith activity seriously.  Plo Koon offered to lead troops into the area, but Obi Wan reminded him that he was still injured from his last daring combat mission against the mercenaries.  Sighing, Plo Koon sat back down.

“I can go,” Obi Wan said, standing up in his place.

“I’ll go too!” Anakin cried, jumping up to stand next to his former master.  The issue was personal for him.

There was more debate about that, but at long last, the Jedi Council agreed to let Anakin and Obi Wan go assess how serious the Sith threat was.  Bail Organa leaned over to whisper in Padmé’s ear in the background, once he noticed who the Council would be sending.

“I can convince the Senate to elect you as the official ambassador to that region, if you want to,” he told her.  “You could oversee negotiations between the Jedi and the local people, make sure peace is restored.  Besides,” he added with a smile, “I know how much you get along with Skywalker.”

Padmé smiled.  “It’ll be just like old times.”

 

In the docking bay, Luke packed a few bags into a small ship.  He’d gotten permission to go explore the galaxy a little bit before deciding whether or not he wanted to stay in the Jedi Order.  R2 zipped around him, beeping excitedly while Luke prepared the ship for takeoff.  Luke smiled at the droid and invited R2 to help prep the ship.  R2 settled into his own spot, beeping even more excitedly and ready for an adventure.

A door opened on the other side of the docking bay and Leia strode across the floor.  She had her hair in twin buns again, and she wore practical clothing: a shirt, jacket, pants, and combat boots ensemble that made her look ready to take on the world.  She carried a bag slung over her shoulder and she grinned at Luke as she approached his ship.

“Got room for one more?” she asked.

Luke smiled.  “Of course I do.  This is a two person ship after all.”

As Leia packed her bag into the ship, another ship was also getting ready for takeoff across the way.  The sleek silver cruiser that belonged to Padmé Amidala was swarming with people carrying hers and Anakin’s bags, crates of supplies, and other things a Senator and a Jedi Knight might need for a long trip.  Obi Wan was there too, loading his own small bundle into the ship and promising to stay out of the married couple’s hair.

Once their ship was packed and ready to go, Anakin and Padmé walked over to where their children stood, parental concern and worry and care in both of their eyes.  Padmé started fussing over their ship, making sure it really looked space-worthy, while Anakin started giving both of them tips on how to manage a lengthy space voyage.

“Dad,” Luke whispered, giving him a look.  “We’ll be fine.  We have R2, remember?”

Anakin smiled at R2.  “How could I forget the best droid in the galaxy?”

R2 beeped happily.

“Did you remember to copy the coordinates I gave you?” Anakin asked.

“R2 has them, it’ll be _fine,_ ” Luke promised.

“We love you both so much,” Padmé said, wrapping both of her children in a big hug.  Then she kissed both of them on the cheek, and Obi Wan politely reminded her that it was time to go.

“Be safe,” Padmé said.  “Keep in touch.”

“You too,” Leia said.

The goodbyes dragged on, but finally, Padmé took Anakin’s hand and went to board her ship.  Luke and Leia waved a temporary goodbye to them as they walked away.  Anakin turned back around as he stood on the boarding ramp and called out to his children one more time.  He didn’t want to forget the greeting which he was sure would give them the best of luck on their journey.

“May the Force be with you.”


End file.
